


to keep the ghosts at bay

by sharkhette



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Season/Series 01, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 12:33:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18031814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkhette/pseuds/sharkhette
Summary: “James?” Godfrey drew a line over James’ skin with his finger, tracing the edges of the thick black marks that chopped his arm into sections. “If I die—when I die. Will I join your ghosts to haunt you too?”James’ breath stilled for a cycle, but his eyes didn’t flicker. “Yes,” he finally said. “I imagine you will.”They sleep together on the ship but they don't sleep.





	to keep the ghosts at bay

James was standing by the ship’s rail when Godfrey found him, leaning heavily on his elbows and looking out into the water. Godfrey approached slowly. The sun had long since set, the ship dark save for a few flickering torches, and the sea rolled black and choppy under them. James didn’t acknowledge his approach, and Godfrey settled in against the rail some feet away, angled to examine James’ face. Whatever he was looking at in the water, Godfrey couldn’t see. There was nothing out there but the waves, yet James’ eyes flickered back and forth as if he were tracking some movement beneath the surface, invisible to all but him.

Godfrey was content to watch him watch the sea. He was used to watching people unobserved; it was comfortable now, second nature to sit back in the shadows and let the people around him go on with their lives as if he weren’t there. He had largely been ignored in school, slipping through the years neither excelling nor failing at any particular subject. The East India had ignored him when he was their clerk, sparing a glance only when they raised their hands, and then only to ensure that he had set his pen aside. Women paid him no mind, and men—he had long since perfected the art of watching men from the corner of his eye, blending into his surroundings as quietly as a mouse.

Except for James. He always seemed to know when he was being watched.

“What do you want?” James rasped, never taking his gaze from the water.

“Nothing. Just to see if it is true that you never sleep.”

“I do not sleep easily.” James leaned to one side and retrieved the bottle that rested hidden by his boots. “I am not fit company tonight, Godfrey.”

“You never are.”

James grunted and took a swig from the bottle. It sounded mostly empty. Had he drunk the entire thing standing out on the deck by himself, with only the wind and the dark water for company? James downed the last of the bottle and leaned over the rail, intent on whatever he saw out there under the waves. Different company, perhaps.

“You should lie down. Even if you cannot sleep, the rest would do you good.”

James lifted his arm to point around the bottle at him. “You are not my keeper.”

“No.”

James turned back to the rail, and Godfrey followed suit.

“What do you see?” Godfrey asked. “In the water. You’re always looking in the water.”

For a long moment, James didn’t answer, until Godfrey thought he never would. But then, in a voice low and rough with drink, he said, “Ghosts.” He nodded to the vast, rolling sea. “They follow me. I see them in the water, and when I sleep, and when I drink.”

“Whose ghosts?”

James slowly turned to look at him. “The drowned,” he said, “and the damned.”

And then he returned his attention to the sea. Godfrey waited for some time longer, but James did not speak again, and Godfrey finally slunk away below deck, leaving him to his quiet haunting.

xXx

Cholmondeley was faring worse by the day. There was little any of them could do for him; they had cleaned his wounds as best they could, but his injuries were extensive, and they were no surgeons. Godfrey sat with him for hours at a time as the man slipped in and out of consciousness like a fish slipping through the waves. Godfrey kept him plied with laudanum, and when there was no use in changing any more bandages or pasting on any more dressings, he held his hand.

James visited more often than Godfrey had expected. Miss Bow was mending better, her injuries not nearly so severe, though she was growing restless confined to the cabin, and Cholmondeley made for poor companionship. Pearl kept Miss Bow company and Godfrey kept his head down, ignoring everyone unless they spoke to him directly. Cholmondeley was the only one who did, but his words grew fewer and less sensical as the laudanum took hold and he slipped further under for longer at a time.

No one on the ship seemed inclined to talk much. Miss Bow tried, sometimes, as if urged to fill the silence with some sign of life, but Godfrey lacked the energy to engage her. Atticus’ natural chatter was dulled by the long days and the constant labour of too few men trying to man too large a ship. And James—he remained preoccupied, and Godfrey did not push him.

On the fourth night, which was at least three days longer than Cholmondeley had been expected to survive, James came and leaned heavily in the doorframe, regarding the cabin’s inhabitants with a wearily appraising eye.

“He was talking some, earlier,” Godfrey said quietly. 

Cholmondeley was unconscious again, Godfrey having upped the dosage once more in an attempt to make his passing more bearable. Though they had staved off infection, his wounds were not healing, and they had missed the window in which a doctor could have helped. All they could do now was wait.

James acknowledged that with a nod. “Miss Bow?”

“Still alive,” the woman said, her mouth slanting up crookedly in a sardonic little smile.

“Good. Godfrey? A word.” And then he turned and stomped off into the dark toward his own cabin, not waiting to see if Godfrey would follow.

Godfrey did, of course. He gathered his skirts in one hand and slipped away from the maudlin tableau, head ducked to avoid having to look anyone in the eye. His paint had long since washed away, his wig discarded—the salt sea did its curls no favours, leaving it unkempt and haggard around his face—and his dress was dingy, grey with the ship’s filth and stained with salt and blood and mud from the docks. He had no other belongings, all lost in their escape. And though James had promised him safe passage and a journey free from the judgement or scorn of English society, he still caught the others looking, sometimes, as if he were little more than a curiosity to be picked apart.

That was better than the outright violence with which some other ships’ crews might have met him, but still. He could feel their eyes on him, skittering over his skin like rats in the night.

He slipped from the cabin to follow after James without a word to his companions.

“Close the door,” James said. He was seated on the bed, hands clasped between his knees, looking as solid and unmoveable as ever. 

Godfrey shut the door and waited. 

“Take a seat.” James nodded to the chair by the desk. 

Godfrey sat, burying his hands in his skirts.

“You’ve been taking care of the others,” James said eventually. “Seeing to the chemist. Miss Bow. Thank you for that.”

“I was lucky to escape injury at the docks. I know little enough first aid, but this seemed the least I could do.”

“And you have done it admirably. A regular ship’s surgeon.” The corner of James’ mouth lifted in something like a smile. “But all this time playing nurse to the others, you have not stopped to take care of yourself. Hm?”

“I’m fine.”

James’ brows canted skeptically.

“I’m fine,” Godfrey repeated, more firmly this time. “Besides, I haven’t played nurse to you. I doubt anyone has, not since you got out of—that place.” He shut his mouth abruptly before he could speak more directly of the Tower. 

James still bore its marks, cut deep into his skin. The wounds on his face had scabbed over, the blood washed away, and though he didn’t move as if he were in pain, Godfrey imagined he hid it in company, like a wounded animal reluctant to show its weak spot.

“Someone ought to,” Godfrey said, looking away. “If not me, then ask Miss Bow. She seems eager to spend more time with you.”

James grunted. “We spend enough time together. We are on the same ship.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” James flexed his hands—still gloved, despite being below deck. Between their black leather and his heavy overcoat, James looked twice his size, hulking and menacing in the half light. “You need not worry about me,” he said, meeting Godfrey’s gaze. “I am healing well enough. The damned will not have me yet.” He stood, and Godfrey instinctively rose to meet him. “But they may well get their hooks in you, if you don’t rest,” James continued, his voice rising and falling in that curious, maddening lilt. “Leave the others be. I need you whole and healthy for what’s to come.”

“What’s to come,” Godfrey repeated, blocking James’ movement toward the cabin door. James paused to humour him, and Godfrey stood his ground. “This was meant to be my reward for having helped you. Safe passage, you said. Whatever plans you have for me after this—”

“We are heading to America,” James said slowly, as if Godfrey had forgotten. “It is not England and you will not be known there, but you are still one of my crew. One of mine.” He almost smiled, and Godfrey’s heart skipped a beat. “I would have you in one piece for it. And from there, we go on to Nootka Sound.”

“With your treasonous gunpowder scheme in-between.”

James inclined his head with a hum. He still looked amused, his eyes softer than the wild, glassy stare Godfrey had grown used to.

Godfrey sighed. “I’m with you. You know that. What I don’t know is how you expect me to rest, surrounded by all that—”

“With me.”

Godfrey cut himself off and stared. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ll rest with me. Here.” James nodded to the bed against the wall. It was as small and sparse as any bunk on any ship Godfrey had ever known.

He felt turned to stone. His face was white, he was sure of it, and he was cold and strangely still all over, like a statue with no heart to beat. “Why?” he heard himself ask, as if from very far away.

James rolled his eyes and stepped around him for the door. “Just say yes,” he advised, and then he was gone.

So Godfrey, god help him, did.

xXx

That night, Godfrey returned to James’ cabin armed with a small assortment of salves and tinctures, determined to make the most of his time with the man.

“If you’re going to insist on my company, at least let me be of some use. Let me see to your injuries.”

“There’s not much to see,” James said, sitting heavily on the bed and tugging off his boots. “That was a week ago. If I haven’t died yet, I won’t.”

Godfrey hovered, his hands flitting uselessly over his skirts as he set his medicines down on the desk. “Nothing infected?”

“No.” James shrugged out of his overcoat, tossing it over the back of the chair. When Godfrey made no move to relax, he sighed and dropped down onto the bed, rolling over to present Godfrey with his shoulder. “For fuck’s sake, stop fussing. Lay down and go to sleep.”

Godfrey stayed where he was a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of James’ ribs. The rhythm was steady as if the man were already asleep, though Godfrey was sure he was merely waiting.

“James?”

James ignored him. Godfrey shut his eyes and cursed himself: for ever agreeing to this madness, for folding to James’ threats, for ever donning a dress or blushing at a man’s attention or loving—

Loving—

The memory of James’ body radiating that terrible heat back in school, drawing Godfrey in like a moth to a flame, helpless from the start—

He took a breath and opened his eyes. James hadn’t moved. Godfrey knelt to unlace his boots before sitting on the edge of the bed, perched as cautiously as a bird on a branch, ready to fly away at any second—and still James did not shift. Sighing, Godfrey loosened his stays and lay down, keeping as near the edge of the bed as he could manage without falling off. The ship rocked gently under him.

“I take the watch at dawn,” James said. “Sleep.”

“What if someone needs—”

“The others can see to themselves till then.”

James didn’t speak again, and the darkness crept in thick all around. The ship creaked and groaned, its wood gently straining, the waves lapping about its hull. Down below deck in the belly of the beast there was no wind, though the salt air permeated everything. It cracked his lips and brought back memories of the Cornwallis, creeping in around the edges of his vision—slanting rain and shouts and screams and that awful sound, that repetitive, endless clinking sound of James driving home those nails.

Godfrey folded his hands over his chest, clenching them into fists so tight his knuckles ached, and stared at the ceiling above. The darkness flickered and shifted in time with the rhythm of the waves. He did not sleep. And beside him, though James remained still and silent, Godfrey sensed that he didn’t, either.

xXx

The next evening, James took him by the arm and steered him to the cabin once more. Godfrey followed without protest; Cholmondeley had spent the day sinking ever deeper, and in response Miss Bow’s remarks had been all the more impatient and cutting, like she could drive back death’s spectre by sheer force of will alone. It was exhausting, and Godfrey was glad of any excuse to get away.

Though James hardly made for better company. He deposited Godfrey on the bed without a word, turning away to divest himself of his coat. If he expected Godfrey to lay down and go to sleep without a single comment—even a gesture, a simple acknowledgement of what they were doing, not that Godfrey had any clear idea of what that was—

“Is this some kind of punishment?” Godfrey asked tiredly.

“I have better tools for punishment than this.”

“Then what is it? Because I hardly see the point in you dragging me in here to sleep when I know for a fact you never sleep yourself.”

James pulled off his boots and sat in the chair by the desk. He looked thoughtful, his stare distant—not looking through Godfrey, but as if at something over his shoulder in the dark. Godfrey shivered but raised his chin.

“I do not sleep,” James agreed slowly. “I told you what I see at night. With you, here…I am able to hold them at bay a little better.”

“Your ghosts.”

James inclined his head. “They’re here now. Everywhere. The sea…it calls to them, lends them power. They try to drag me into the water.”

“What do they want?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Justice. Revenge. They seek to drown me.”

Godfrey looked at him more closely. “Are they all people you’ve killed?”

James’ lips twitched up in a smile. “Not all of them. My mother. And Winter.”

“Winter?”

“The girl. She’s here now.” He nodded to the space behind Godfrey, and Godfrey, though he didn’t believe, turned. There was nothing there. “Others will join them,” James continued. “Winter is the most recent. My sister—” But there he cut himself off. “Come to bed,” he said instead, and damn the man—of course he knew what that did to Godfrey. Of course he was counting on it.

xXx

Cholmondeley died the next day.

Godfrey was with him when he passed, and it was a quiet and undramatic affair. After, James and Atticus wrapped the body in sailcloth and tipped it over the rail. Godfrey watched it disappear under the waves like there had never been a person there at all. His hands shook as he rested them on the rail, but his mind was curiously blank. Cholmondeley had given him purpose on the ship, and though his death had been long expected, it gnawed at Godfrey. With the chemist gone, what was he to do with these endless days? He took his turn at the watch and he mended sails and hauled rigging, but none of that gave him any sense of real purpose, and he wasn’t particularly good at any of it, either.

He cornered James in his cabin that night, his bag of makeshift medical supplies clutched in one trembling hand. “You need to let me look at you.”

James lifted his brows without glancing over. “Oh?”

“I don’t care if your injuries aren’t going to kill you—I know you’ve not had them looked at since we got on this ship, and with Mr. Cholmondeley dead I have no other way to make myself useful, so please, just—let me do this.”

“I do not need a nursemaid.”

“No, James Delaney doesn’t need anything, does he? You walk around like none of this can touch you, but I’ve seen you bleed, James. I knew you before Africa. I used to watch you sleep, back before any of this. I know you’re just a man, no matter how you try to hide it.”

Godfrey wavered when James turned to look him, his stare intent and pale in the lamplight, one finger pointing and accusatory. “You do not lecture me on what makes a man. I have done things you could never understand.”

“Because you won’t talk about them!” Godfrey snapped. “You never tell anyone anything—how are we supposed to understand you? How am I? You have all these people ready to lay down our lives for you, to throw away everything we were, and you tell us nothing! Just order us here and there and expect unquestioning loyalty, but that can’t last forever, James. You know it can’t.”

“And what are you going to do about it here, hm? In the middle of the ocean?”

Godfrey threw the bag at him, and the contents scattered over the floor. “Fine. Sleep with your ghosts, then.”

xXx

He returned to the cabin where Cholmondeley had died. Pearl and Miss Bow were still in their corner, engaged in some quiet conversation that dropped off as he entered. He spared them a nod before folding himself into his bunk, caught somewhere between hurt and rage. Miss Bow caught his eye and smiled sympathetically, like she knew what had happened. She was acquainted with this incarnation of James better than any of them—perhaps she did know. But Godfrey didn’t want her sympathy, if that was indeed what she offered. He wanted to curl up somewhere dark and private to lick his wounds alone, and curse his foolish heart for ever following James in the first place, threats or no. To think a man like James could ever change, or, indeed, ever think of anyone but himself—

Godfrey was a fool and always had been. He knew what James was and threw in with him regardless, and there was nowhere private on the ship to regret it.

He didn’t sleep that night, and when he saw James on deck the next day, he knew the man knew it. Godfrey ducked his head and focused on his tasks, ignoring James as well as he could, though of course that had always been impossible. He went to Atticus to ask for more directions, more work, anything to keep him occupied, and worked the ropes until his palms tore and bled.

“That needs seeing to,” James murmured that evening as they crowded around the table below deck to wolf down their rations.

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Godfrey snapped, as if he actually might neglect his hands out of spite.

James just looked at him. Godfrey dropped his gaze to his bowl and tried not to feel like a boy again, meeting James for the first time. Even then, James had a way of staring straight through people. The devil Delaney, with his long black coat and blood on his hands. The stories hadn’t started until after James had returned from Africa and from the dead, but he had always been like that. Always able to bend other men to his will.

So it was no surprise that Godfrey found himself back in James’ cabin that night. He sat on the edge of James’ bunk, his hands cleaned and bandaged to the best of his abilities. Miss Bow had helped wrap them, her touch gentle and to-the-point. There were worse people with whom to be trapped at sea, Godfrey knew. He had already lived that life.

“I wish I could find some way to hate you, the way the East India did. I have every right to. But I can never seem to manage it.”

James just grunted and shed his coat. “I should be easy to hate. You know the things I’ve done.”

“Some of them. Some are just stories.” The murder, the treason, the blackmail—that he knew. That, he had experienced firsthand. But the rest…the dark whispers that flocked in James’ wake like shadows, the worst and wickedest rumours that humanity had to offer…Godfrey didn’t want those confirmed. “I can’t hate you, James. I never could.”

“You should try harder.”

“So you can find someone else to keep your ghosts at bay?”

James looked at him then, glancing back over his shoulder as he kicked his boots aside. “You are of more use to me than that.”

Godfrey shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You know by now I’ll do whatever you ask.”

James was quiet as he finished undressing and climbed past Godfrey to claim his place in the bunk. “When we arrive in America, you are free to do as you please,” he said eventually into the shadows. “I will ask no more of you. Perhaps, with time, you can learn to hate me.”

Godfrey stared into the dark. The faint orange glow of the lamp by the door illuminated little, and the dancing shadows that played across the walls and meager furniture only served to heighten the intimacy of the place. The ship rocked gently on the waves. All Godfrey could see of his companion was the profile of his face and the contour of his body. His dark clothes bled into the shadows, and the wood creaked and groaned over the sea.

“People will talk, you know,” Godfrey said softly. “You bringing me here, night after night.”

“That’s what they do.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“It can’t hurt me.”

Godfrey had spent his whole life protecting his secrets, guarding them so fiercely he had scarcely managed to live at all. He had thought that to expose a single one would mean the end for him—and then James had come and unravelled them all like they were nothing, and Godfrey was still standing.

“You were the first man I ever loved.” Godfrey bit his tongue too late; it was admitting a terrible weakness, though of course James already knew. Not the fact that James was a man, but love itself—men like James had no room for such sentiment.

“The only woman I ever loved,” James said presently, “she killed herself. I couldn’t love her the way she wanted.” He rolled over to glance at Godfrey. “I hope you will not do the same.”

Godfrey was far too great a coward to ever consider such a thing. Even when it would have been the easiest way out, back when James had first come to him with that offer—that threat—even then Godfrey hadn’t the stomach to consider it.

“You should sleep,” James said without opening his eyes. “Now that the chemist is dead.”

“Has he joined your ghosts?” Godfrey regretted his words as soon as they were out, but James seemed to take no offense.

“Not yet, but he will.” James’ profile was dark and unknowable, gazing up at the ceiling as he folded his hands over his chest. “He will.”

xXx

They still didn’t sleep, or at least, they didn’t sleep enough. Godfrey lay awake counting his regrets, and James—Godfrey didn’t know what James did through the night. Sometimes he talked, his words low and rushed and heated, barely discernable to Godfrey’s ear. His ghosts, perhaps—whatever phantasms of guilt or grief or regret plagued him in the dark. Godfrey didn’t ask about them again, and if they were real, they let him be.

Eventually, as Godfrey grew tired of dwelling on his own mistakes, his mind wandering and his thoughts slow and thick, he returned to his old pastime and watched James. The man’s breath was steady, his chest a rhythm of even rises and falls, but even with his eyes closed, Godfrey didn’t mistake him for being asleep.

“What is this?” Godfrey finally asked. James was a heavy heat beside him, the bunk too small for them to escape one another, and he radiated heat like a furnace. Godfrey wanted to curl into it but couldn’t bring himself to cross that threshold and abandon the last remaining shred of his dignity. “What do you want from me, here, now, like this? When clearly neither of us are sleeping, whatever you say. You still talk to your ghosts: I can hear you.”

James cracked one eye open. “You have done exactly as I asked, and this is your repayment, as promised.” He shut his eyes again and settled his hands over his stomach. “You gave me what I wanted, and now you can take what you want.”

“What I want,” Godfrey repeated, dry-mouthed.

James’ mouth tilted in what could have been a smile. “I’m not wrong. Unless you don’t want it here, like this.”

“It’s not what I imagined,” Godfrey confessed. “When I dared imagine anything at all.”

James held up one hand, as he had done before, and as before, Godfrey took it, wrapping hesitant fingers round.

“And now?” James asked. “Do you still imagine?”

“They say you killed a man with your bare hands. That you tore his throat out with your teeth.”

“Oh, they have said far worse things than that.”

Godfrey ran his thumb over James’ knuckles. The skin had scabbed over there where once it had been split and bloody, the bones jutting up under Godfrey’s touch. James still had not spoken of his time in the Tower and Godfrey had not asked again. His injuries were many, even before that last stand at the docks, and those were only the visible ones. The men in the Tower had ways of inflicting damage unseen to the naked eye: poison and drowning and beatings designed not to leave a mark, not to mention the more obvious marks one could hide under clothes. Godfrey could not think of a time James was not suffering from some hurt or another—yet on he marched, grim and unstoppable.

James Delaney was not a man to be pitied. He had survived the Tower and he would survive whatever followed.

“They say you learned witchcraft in Africa. They tell tales of cannibalism.”

“Mm.” James’ hand was warm but still in Godfrey’s. “And does that frighten you?”

Godfrey made a soft sound in his throat and James opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him properly. 

“I will not hurt you,” James said slowly, “nor anyone else on this ship. Not unless you look to stick a knife between my ribs.” He curled his fingers lightly, just enough to ensure Godfrey’s attention. He needn’t have worried; Godfrey’s attention was rarely anywhere else. “I can read men’s hearts. I know of their betrayals even before they do. And you have nothing to fear from me.”

Godfrey lifted James’ hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to his battered knuckles. James grunted and shut his eyes again, making no move to withdraw from Godfrey’s grasp.

“Not what you had imagined,” James said, speaking into the dark. “And what was that? Back before we were brothers in arms…we shared a bunk not unlike this. What did you imagine then, when you dared?”

Godfrey shook his head and pressed his mouth to the back of James’ hand to keep from speaking. James lifted his brows and made an inquiring sound.

“I did not dare,” Godfrey whispered. “Even now I scarcely dare it. Even here, with you…” He gestured to James’ body on the bed, though James’ eyes were still closed.

“No?” James’ tone turned teasing. “Not as schoolboys, when we lay together in the night, in as much privacy could be had in such a place…I could not read your thoughts then, you know.” He turned his wrist as if in a shrug. “Though I guessed.”

“You never said.”

“I did not think you would have wanted me to.”

Godfrey shook his head and caught James’ hand between both of his. “No. I did not.”

James shrugged before making himself more comfortable. “But now we are here.”

“We are. And I have betrayed my company and country and you have given me safe passage on your ship, so we are even, yet you still contrive to…” He squeezed James’ hand, ignoring the pain that lanced through his own at the action. “Why are you doing this?” he asked again.

“Because I thought this was what you wanted.” James opened his eyes, withdrew his hand, and turned onto his side. He propped himself up on one elbow and caught Godfrey’s eye. Godfrey glanced away. “If you want to go,” James began, but Godfrey leaned in and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw before he could finish. His stubble was scratchy there, and rough. Godfrey darted back as soon as he had made contact and then waited, eyes downcast.

James made a sound in his chest and reached over, bridging the few inches between them to lay his hand on Godfrey’s side. His eyes were dark and fathomless in the flickering torchlight, his expression softly amused. Here in the dark, so near to sleep, he looked almost like the man Godfrey knew from so many years earlier. When James made no further movement, Godfrey reached over to cup his face, and this time when he leaned in he went slowly, and pressed his mouth to James’. He lingered there, their lips chapped from the salt air, rough and cracked, but warm. James leaned into the touch, though his eyes were still open when Godfrey let his flutter shut, his hand trembling where it rested on the side of James’ face. He held his breath and counted his heartbeats as he held himself there, closer than he had ever dreamed, though James was as impenetrable as ever. When he finally pulled back, James was still watching him. Godfrey let out a shaky exhale.

“Did that meet your expectations?” James asked.

“You assume I’ve put far more thought into this than I really have,” Godfrey said tremulously.

James grunted. His hand was heavy on Godfrey’s side, though not unpleasant, resting just above the flare of his skirts. “If I were to tell you what you wanted,” he offered, “would you deny it?”

“James…”

“Because I think my idea is accurate.” He stroked his hand over Godfrey’s ribs, up to his chest and back down to his skirts again. “Am I wrong?”

“You rarely are,” Godfrey grumbled, but he did not try to resist. The touch, light as it was and over so many layers of clothimg, had been all he had yearned for for so long; he couldn’t have imagined a circumstance in which he would have willingly drawn away.

“So?” James prodded.

Godfrey shut his eyes. “Do what you will. You know I can’t refuse you anything.”

“Hm. You should.”

James moved like a predator when he set his mind to it, but he did everything like a predator. Even when he was still, watching and waiting, there was a danger to him. It was alluring at first, as fascinating as watching a tiger pace its cage, but then—after the stories began, those dark rumours from the heart of Africa, and then later, following James’ return to London and the wave of bodies that drifted in his wake—then the danger felt more real, the bars of the cage removed. Though even then, when James had cornered him in the molly house—even when James had struck him—Godfrey had never believed that James would truly harm him. He feared the East India far more than he feared James. He hadn’t hurt him back in school when they had shared a room and James had suspected Godfrey’s feelings; he hadn’t in London, not even to threaten him into compliance—and that one strike hardly counted. It had been little more than a tap. Godfrey had had worse from lovers. And James certainly wouldn’t hurt him now, not on his own ship, bound for a whole new world.

James rolled Godfrey onto his back in one fluid motion, pressing his wrists to the bed by his shoulders and bearing down with his full weight. Godfrey was taller but slighter than James, who was well muscled, though not as broad across the shoulders as his overcoat made him seem. Godfrey made no resistance, going wide-eyed and pliant under him. 

James leaned down so his mouth was by Godfrey’s ear, and murmured, “You need only ask. For as long as we are on this ship, I am at your disposal.”

“Why?”

James bit at the junction where the corner of Godfrey’s jaw met his throat, but did not answer. Godfrey sighed and tipped his head back to allow for better access. The scrape of James’ beard was on just the right side of rough, a delicious scratch and burn checked only by the warm, wet press of his mouth. Even more than the earlier touch, it was everything Godfrey had ever wanted, and more than he’d ever hoped for. The weight of James’ body, the heavy line of him from chest to thigh, his fingers wrapped around Godfrey’s wrists—far more exquisite than the old torture of being so near yet unable to touch, and somehow more painful. He fought to hold himself still, though to what end, he couldn’t say—the game was up, his feelings willingly admitted. He had nothing more to hide. His pride was long since shattered, only clinging on in tattered remnants. James either didn’t notice or preferred him that way; easier to direct, perhaps. Maybe that was unfair to James, but then, he was unlikely to take offense.

“Relax,” James said from Godfrey’s collar bone, “unless you want me to stop.”

“I want to know your motivations,” Godfrey returned.

“I told you, this is repayment.” James bit a course to Godfrey’s shoulder, mouthing at the fabric of his sleeve before sinking his teeth into the skin below.

“And I told you, I consider myself repaid. Besides which, I thought blackmail did not typically involve repayment at all.”

James made no answer, and as he traversed further down Godfrey’s chest, Godfrey did not press the matter. There was little opportunity for love in a molly house—there, lust and secrecy were king, and Godfrey had been lonely for a long time. Whatever James’ intentions, his touch was like water in the desert—a whole ocean of water, overwhelming in the force of its tide, and they were sailing beyond the reach of any law that could punish them for it.

“You seem unengaged,” James noted, lifting his head.

“I’m somewhat overwhelmed,” Godfrey breathlessly replied.

“Surely you’ve done more than this before.”

“Have you?”

James hummed and rolled his hips experimentally, and Godfrey instinctively parted his legs in response.

“Another secret from Africa?” Godfrey gasped.

“I don’t think that was one of the rumours repeated by the East India.”

“It wasn’t. I would have remembered.” Godfrey let his legs fall open, and James settled in between them, aligning their hips so that with every roll of the ship, they moved together. Godfrey dropped his head back, baring his throat, and James bent forward to bite at the soft skin there.

“Whatever you think of the Americans, I doubt they condone these sorts of activities any more than the English do,” Godfrey observed.

James hummed, working his way down Godfrey’s chest again, taking apart his dress as he went. Godfrey, with his hands bandaged, couldn’t offer much in the way of help, but he followed James with kisses and soft noises of want and encouragement. James made a sound in his throat like a purr and continued, his every movement spurring Godfrey on.

“The Americans need not know,” James said. 

He tore the dress open and bit at the ridge of Godfrey’s ribs, dragging his beard in a coarse path over the sensitive skin of his stomach and wrenching a gasp and a shudder from his willing captive. Godfrey pushed James’ shirt off his shoulders, his bandaged hands clumsy and inelegant but the pain forgotten in the face of James’ tattoos. He traced the bands of black down James’ neck, over his shoulders and his chest where his shirt had hidden them—and hidden the more violent marks, as well. Scars, cuts, and bruises littered his skin, some so old that Godfrey could touch them, and others still fresh enough to hurt. Godfrey couldn’t hide the sound that broke from his throat at the sight of them, and James paused in his ministrations.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not.” Godfrey struggled upright, putting some distance between them, one hand on James’ shoulder to hold him off. “God, James, you look—”

James caught his hand and lowered it to the bed. “It’s nothing. I will heal as I’ve always healed. Hm? They couldn’t kill me then and they will not kill me now.”

“The invincible devil Delaney,” Godfrey murmured, raising his hand to trace a line down James’ chest, over the black marks. “Did you get these in Africa?”

James grunted.

“Along with your ghosts and your witchcraft.”

“I do not regret it.” James leaned in and captured Godfrey’s lips in a kiss. “It was a necessary step, to become what I am now.” His kiss turned biting and Godfrey moaned. “Do you wish I were still the man you knew before?”

Godfrey wrapped his arms around James’ neck to pull their bodies flush, selfishly revelling in the heat of it. “I wish you hadn’t suffered.” He kissed along James’ jaw as he caught his breath.

“I was not made for happiness.”

James’ attention shifted to Godfrey’s skirts, the material rumpled where James knelt on it, and rucked up between their thighs. Godfrey held his breath as James parted the fabric, shoving it aside inelegantly to reach beneath.

“This is what you want?” James asked, glancing up for a moment, his eyes pale and unreadable in the lamplight, though Godfrey imagined he looked—what? Not hesitant, surely. Not when he claimed to know what lay in Godfrey’s heart, and had done for years.

Godfrey bit his tongue and nodded. “Yes, just—”

James’ hands were as rough and calloused as the rest of him, and the first coarse touch had Godfrey sinking his teeth into his lip to keep from crying out, letting his head drop back and hang heavy from his shoulders. Better by far than the undirected pressure when they had lain rubbing against one another; there was nothing teasing in James’ touch, nothing unsure. He was as direct as he was in all things, and as all conscious thought fled Godfrey’s mind before the onslaught of sheer physical sensation, he only had time to wonder: did James take the same approach to violence as he took to love?

Godfrey gasped his release into the dark with wild, panting breaths that he sought to stifle before falling back against the bunk, his hair sticking to the sweat of his forehead and curling at his nape. His skirts were ruined, of course, as was the entire dress, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Still catching his breath, he drew James down onto him, catching his mouth in a lazy kiss as he explored with careful fingers the back of James’ neck and over his shoulders. He paused only when he brushed over a gnarl of raised skin, and froze.

“It doesn’t hurt,” James murmured from Godfrey’s throat.

“What is it?”

“A brand.”

He said no more, and Godfrey knew better than to press for details. He dropped his hands lower, smoothing over James’ back ribs and down his sides, to the dip of his back where his sweat collected in a pool before running over his hips. He worked against Godfrey in a slow and building rhythm, eyes shut and mouth open against his throat, his hips rolling into Godfrey’s where his skirts bunched up unmanageably, the drag of fabric torturous against Godfrey’s bare and overly sensitive skin. James caught his wrists and pinned them to the bunk and Godfrey made no objection, his fingers curling around his bandaged palms, limbs heavy and brain still sparking with pleasure, teetering so close to the edge of pain. When James came, his grip turned crushing and he moaned something into the skin of Godfrey’s shoulder like a name or a curse, his hips stuttering before he collapsed, heavy and loose with animal satisfaction.

They lay like that for minutes, rocking gently with the waves, until their skin cooled and turned sticky, and James dragged his discarded shirt over the mess like he didn’t have to wear it again the next day. Godfrey knew he ought to sit up, to fix his clothes and take his leave, but he wasn’t at the molly house anymore, and on the ship there was scarcely anywhere else to go. Instead, he watched as James performed his cursory cleaning and then dropped back down beside him, burning hot and more relaxed than Godfrey had ever seen.

James didn’t look at him before settling his arms over his chest and closing his eyes. “Was that to your satisfaction?”

“Who were you thinking of?” Godfrey asked.

James made a sound in his chest but didn’t reply.

“I don’t mind. Most men imagined someone else, back in…before.” He wanted to touch James’ tattoos again, to explore them with the freedom a lover might have, to investigate the nature of that brand between his shoulder blades. He curled his hands over his chest, mirroring James’ posture, and sighed softly into the dark.

“Go to sleep,” James said finally.

“Will you have me back tomorrow night?”

“If you like.”

Godfrey should get up, walk away, and never look back. But it was far too late for that; where else was he to go?

He turned onto his side, resting one hand on James’ chest just to feel his breath. “Did you really sell your soul to the devil like they say?”

James cracked open one eye. “You don’t believe in the devil.”

Godfrey shrugged. “No, but I’m damned all the same, aren’t I? We all are. You said it yourself.”

“Mm.” James shut both eyes again. He seemed closer to sleep than Godfrey had ever seen him.

“James?” Godfrey drew a line over James’ skin with his finger, tracing the edges of the thick black marks that chopped his arm into sections. “If I die—when I die. Will I join your ghosts to haunt you too?”

James’ breath stilled for a cycle, but his eyes didn’t flicker. “Yes,” he finally said. “I imagine you will.”

Godfrey bit his lip but didn’t speak. He imagined them, pale and cold, shimmering beneath the waves and reaching out with spectral arms to drag James under, down into the icy black depths. He shuddered to think of it, but was it really such a terrible fate? He had been James’ ghost for so long already.

“Sleep,” James repeated. “Come back tomorrow or the next night or the night after that. Do this again or don’t. Until America, the choice is yours.”

The choice had never been his at all, but Godfrey murmured a soft sound of assent and lay his head on James’ shoulder, the dark skin smudged with soot and scabs and scars, and shut his eyes to the sound of James’ heartbeat, steady as gunfire, steady as that awful clinking of nails hammering home in the rain, and slept.


End file.
